Special Arrangement with Somaliland A Symbol of Depoliticized Aid Relations
International partners supporting Somalia and Somaliland on a number of reconstruction, security, and governance programmes in Somalia, and on development and democratization processes, among others, in the case of Somaliland, softly – and in diplomatically cached terms – reminded Villa Somalia that aid relations were not the same as scoring political kudos and, as such, need not be politicized.
Responding to a letter the FGS’s young Minister of Planning, Gamal Mohamed, gunned at partners on June 9, 2018, calling for an end to the Special Arrangement aid deal with Somaliland, the partners said the arrangement was well in line with the ‘spirit of transparency and equity’ which they believed was ‘both necessary and desirable, and in the interests of all Somalis’, and, so accordingly, that ‘the arrangements that have worked so well since 2013 be continued’.
Partners recalled that at the time the new deal was put into effect, both donors and ‘Somali government partners’ recognized that the ‘situation was different in a number of ways from that of Puntland and what at that time was describes as “South Central Somalia”‘.
The partners would certainly act in accordance with the kind of response their view of the Somaliland deal garners in Villa Somalia. Their response may not be as gentle and courteous as it is in this first communication with the FGS team.
The partners’ response is a slap in the face to a rash, diplomatically uncultured young team at the helm of Somalia smelling blood since they have succeeded to lasso in ICAO, a UN body, to unilaterally hand over Somali airspace management despite the fact that issue was a contentious, most contested central point to the internationally-chaperoned Somalia-Somaliland talks since they started in 2012.
What is striking in this response, however, is that it does not directly or indirectly address the minister whose communication inspired it, completely ignoring him.
Find a copy of the partners’ letter below:
